by Jack Davis
What Vasquez didn’t take into account in his tactical planning was that Alvaro had been thinking strategically. He had been working on getting out of prison well before he had ever set foot in one.
Alvaro’s strategy for getting out of prison was strikingly similar to how he had been sent there: a series of bribes. The plan was solid, but by no means foolproof. He had heard of it working in the past but had not personally known anyone who had succeeded. In the final analysis, he really didn’t have any other choice.
The plan relied on Maria, and he had gone over each intricacy with her dozens of times, well before he was ever arrested. The first few times, she cried uncontrollably at the thought of her husband in prison.
“Brecita, I’m not going to prison. Don’t cry,” said Alvaro as his beloved buried her head in his shoulder. “You know me. I just worry too much.” He caressed her shoulders.
When Maria stopped crying, he looked deep into her eyes. “I just need to make sure we have a plan. We have the money set away, this, this is like insurance. For Rosa and Guilli.” The last part seemed to bring out a different side of Maria. “I’m the one who has the hard part in this plan,” he said with a smile.
“If you aren’t here, half of me will be in prison too.”
The sentence sent a shiver down Alvaro’s back. His eyes started to water. “I love you so much. That is why we have to plan.”
“I know,” said Maria. “I know you’re only protecting me and the kids. I trust you.”
Alvaro kissed her forehead.
Over the next hour, Alvaro went over everything he thought Maria could accept. He warned that she could not completely trust anyone other than his Kings, Jesus and Paco. They would get her the names of the parole board. She had to see each one and ask them to hear her husband’s case. Alvaro said anyone who agreed to meet with her privately would be looking for money, and a deal.
What Alvaro didn’t tell Maria was the larger plan to deal with gang life inside and outside while he was in prison. The first step was to accept his fate and play the “good soldier.” He would surely be angry, but there could be no indication he was incensed enough to turn on his friends and work with authorities to get out quickly. He came up with the idea of playing it off on his family. Alvaro felt Vasquez would believe he was concerned enough about his family’s well-being while he was in prison to trade support for them against his desire for retaliation. Everyone knew how Alvaro felt about his wife and children, and in every conversation he had with Diamond, he made sure he mentioned how difficult the situation was going to be for them. Soon everyone believed that nothing meant more to Alvaro than his family, which happened to be the truth.
Next Alvaro let it be known he was worried about how his family would survive without him supporting them. Within two weeks, through an intermediary in the prison, he was told that Vasquez was willing to help out the family of his “good friend.” Alvaro knew Vasquez was trying to show the others he was willing to do the right thing and seem magnanimous.
“The way things are now,” the intermediary looked around the prison yard, “it would be best for everyone if you went along. Diamond thinks so too.”
That Vasquez would not be out a peso but would order it to come out of the profit of one of his underlings, and that Alvaro really had little choice, was lost on many. Alvaro was overly gracious in his acceptance of the offer, and due to the fact he had oversold the first part of the plan, it didn’t seem out of place.
While he put this part of the plan in motion, Alvaro needed to make sure his closest friends did not retaliate. He set up a call through his lawyer.
“Jesus? Paco?”
“Jefe, how you doin’,” asked Paco
“Varo, we miss having you out here,” added Jesus at the same time.
“Things are shitty in here, but we knew that,” said Alvaro. “This has to be short, and I can’t say too much.”
“Uhh,” said Paco confirming they understood.
He cleared his throat. “For Maria, Rosa, and Guilli, I’m ordering you to tell everyone—everyone—that no one retaliate.”
“Jefe, you were ass-fucked,” Jesus said. “We all know who did it. He can’t just get away with it.”
Paco added, “Jefe, we can’t let something like this go unpunished. It tells everyone we are weak. We’ll get eaten up by Vasquez’s men.”
“I know this is a tortilla filled with shit, but for now we have to just let it sit on the plate. If we have an internal war, everyone loses. I promised Diamond I wouldn’t let it happen from my crew.”
Alvaro heard the exasperated exhales through the phone.
“I have a plan, but for my plan to work, and for the safety of Maria, the kids, and you two, there can be no retaliation…yet.”
The last situation that needed to be addressed was Alvaro’s position within the Latin Kings while in prison. There was a hierarchy, inside as well as out. New members, especially those of Alvaro’s rank, normally had an effect on the pyramid when they entered the prison. Knowing this, Alvaro sought out the Kings’ bosses and made sure every one of them knew he would do whatever they needed but that he was not looking to take anyone’s position. He said that since he was going to be there for a long time, he would take positions as other members left. Knowing the danger of appearing weak, he also made it clear he would not accept less respect than any of the other bosses. And, if anyone had a problem with that arrangement, they should tell him. His speech was well received. Accordingly, he was given a good cell, one with a toilet and a window, that had only one other inmate, a junior gang member who was there to do his bidding.
As time passed and Alvaro took no retaliation, people started to accept that all he wanted was to be safe in prison, serve his time, and have his family taken care of on the outside. Most everyone assumed he would either die in prison or be in for so long that by the time he got out he would be of no threat to anyone. More pressing issues like turf wars, gang killings, and other arrests soon pushed Alvaro Lopez to the back of people’s consciousness. It seemed to do the same for those who had promised to look after Maria and the children.
Alvaro knew if he pushed the matter of money for his family, they would get a little more, but it wouldn’t last long. It would also remind people he was still a potential problem and make them worry about what would happen if they didn’t pay, thereby making him a threat again. He’d planned for this, had money saved up, and as long as he had a little coming in from Jesus and Paco, Maria had enough to live on.
While in jail, Alvaro kept up with what was happening on the outside as best he could. Although he didn’t want to seem too interested, he couldn’t lose control altogether. If his plan worked, he would be out again and potentially back in the same position as before, with all the same players. He also needed the gang connections to be able to stay alive and unmolested in prison. He didn’t want to spend however long he was going to be locked up having to worry every time he went to sleep or took a shower. He maintained appearances, did what he needed to keep himself alive, worked out, and thought. There was little else to do.
The problem was the same: no matter how much he thought about it, he still couldn’t come up with a way out of gang life. He had always been good at looking ahead; he prided himself on it. Now it was driving him crazy that he could not come up with some scheme that would solve the biggest problem in his life. Once he got out of jail, he would be in exactly the same spot he’d been in before he was arrested.
That was, until he met Jose Tejada.
16 | Jose Tejada
Mexico City, 09/06/07
Alvaro didn’t see the answer to his dilemma walking toward the Kings’ section of the prison yard that unusually hot November morning. What he saw was a skinny, nervous-looking kid—he couldn’t have been older than twenty—without any ink, or a prayer. Most importantly at that moment for Alvaro, the kid didn’t have anything in his hands, nor a place to hide a weapon. As he crossed the unofficial threshold into King
s’ territory, Alvaro, who sat sweating on the weight bench, nodded.
Instantly the young stranger was flanked by two Kings who had been off his shoulders. The young man hadn’t noticed them, confirming in Alvaro’s mind he was not a threat. Then again, there was more at stake here than just the threat. New prisoners had to know the rules and obey them. Otherwise, prison life would be even more chaotic and dangerous. Rules made prison mildly safe for those with someone watching their backs. This kid obviously needed a lesson in prison etiquette.
When the stranger got within twenty feet, Alvaro nodded to the flankers. They quickly moved in and grabbed the bewildered young man by the arms and directed him away from Alvaro. The stranger’s face, which showed significant bruising that Alvaro rightly attributed to the police, registered surprise, confusion, and terror all at once.
“What? No, you don’t understand.” The individual’s eyes darted to the face on his right then to the face on his left as he tried to plead his case.
“I need to speak to someone in the Latin Kings. I need, please stop.” The young man’s feet were both off the ground, flailing comically as he tried to gain traction mid-air.
“My cousin Fernando is a Latin King, I need to speak to,” as the individual realized his pleading was having no effect on the stoic sentinels to his right and left, he started to raise his voice. Alvaro shook his head; the stranger had just made things worse for himself by breaking another rule. Too much noise attracted the guards, and then no one is happy.
The response was a brutally swift fist to the young man’s abdomen. It knocked the wind out of him, causing him to double over and cough feebly. A dusty, sweat-drenched rag appeared from a back pocket and was quickly shoved into the helpless man’s mouth as he was rapidly dragged out of sight. Alvaro watched the guards; they had looked up momentarily. Alvaro gave them a everything-is-okay shake of his head, and since the noise had subsided, they returned to playing cards and talking.
When Alvaro arrived in the bathroom the skinny stranger had taken a good beating, on top of the one he had received at the hands of the police.
“Who is he?”
“Says his name is Jose Tejada. Says he has a cousin who’s a King and he wants to join.”
All three Kings burst out laughing.
When Alvaro was able to contain himself, he asked, “What’s he in for?”
The response wasn’t immediate, causing Alvaro to look up. Both Kings looked puzzled and embarrassed. “We…” The speaker looked at his partner for support, none was forthcoming. “We didn’t understand what he said.”
“What?”
“He said he used credit cards.”
“Credit cards?”
“That’s what he said.” The man again looked to his partner.
“He did,” said the smaller of the two, nodded vigorously in agreement. “Credit cards.”
Alvaro shifted from one foot to the other as he pondered the situation. He stared at the young man on his hands and knees in front of him. “Kill ’im.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the two Kings lifted the condemned man under the arms.
“No! Please no,” begged Tejada.
Alvaro watched the two drag their helpless victim into the shower area where the blood could be washed down the drain. As he watched, he noticed a brown stain spread across the seat of the young man’s pants and down both pant legs.
“He shit,” said the larger of the two Kings.
“Please no!” pleaded Tejada.
“Shut the fuck up,” said the other man as he produced a knife.
“I’m not cleaning it up,” said the first King.
“Please!” said the sobbing youngster.
“I’m not gonna do it,” said the other.
Alvaro spoke up. “Let him clean himself up. He’s not a cop or a plant. He’d have told us by now.”
It wasn’t until a day later that Jose Tejada was allowed to speak to Alvaro. In the intervening time, checks had been run through gang informants in the police department and the prison system. By the time the two spoke, Alvaro knew everything the police knew about the prisoner. Tejada was a curiosity to Alvaro because he had been arrested for something Alvaro had no understanding of: credit card fraud.
At their first meeting, Alvaro found what the young man did interesting. When he was told how much money Tejada was making, he found it fascinating. Having an active mind and nothing but time, he decided to have Tejada explain everything. The initial explanation was vague. Three minutes into the briefing, Alvaro stopped Tejada. “Have you been raped yet?”
Alvaro saw the shock in the young man’s eyes.
“No.”
“Do you want to be?”
“No,” said Tejada in a tone that belayed his fear.
“Then you better do a better job of explaining this to me.”
“I will, Jefe, I will.” Tejada’s collected himself before starting again. His next sentence came out with a timidity that amused Alvaro.
“Jefe, do you know what a credit card is?” Tejada shrunk back in his chair as if about to be struck.
“Yes. Uhm, I think so. It’s a little piece of plastic with numbers on it that rich people use to buy things.”
“Yes,” said Tejada, apparently happy not to have offended his boss. “To buy things, the credit card is attached to a bank account…”
Over the next thirty minutes Alvaro learned the basics of how credit cards worked, often asking Tejada to repeat himself to try and understand. Finally, when his brain was full, he asked, “What would you like for lunch?”
“Jefe?”
“What would you like for lunch? I want to learn more but I’m hungry. I’m going to have a chicken burrito. What would you like?” Alvaro knew that his young teacher probably hadn’t had anything but stale tortillas or cast-off taco shells since arriving and was confused by the offer.
Alvaro moved across the cell and opened the door. “Order us two chicken burritos and two cokes.”
“Yes, Jefe. Anything else,” asked the large man standing just outside the cell.
“If they have any of the excellent conchas, we’ll have a couple of those.” As the man started to walk away, Alvaro called after him. “Make sure you get something for you and your partner.” Alvaro patted the other King guarding his cell on the shoulder.
“Yes, Jefe. Thank you,” said the first King, hurrying off toward the guards’ mess area.
“Back to learning,” said Alvaro as he stretched. “Now that I know about credit cards, how do I make money with them?”
“First you have to get them.”
“Get them. You mean steal them, right?”
“Yes, Jefe, but there are good ways to steal them and bad ways. If you steal a man’s wallet, he will know. He might see you steal it and can tell the police what you look like. He may chase after you and catch you. This is a bad way to steal a credit card. Mostly because he’ll report the card stolen and the credit card company will turn it off.”
“Turn it off?”
“Yes, well, sort of. They use a computer to tell all the store owners not to take it anymore. Then you can’t use it.”
“How long does that take? I mean to tell all those stores.”
“They can do it in hours.”
Alvaro couldn’t hide his amazement. “Hours? All the store owners?”
“Yes. They use computers to tell them all at once, all over the world I think.”
Tejada’s face showed he was deep in thought. “Jefe, if you wanted to tell every King in this prison something, you could talk to each one, one at a time, which would take a long time. But if you said something over the loudspeaker, they would hear it all at once. That’s like what the credit card companies do with computers.”
“Ah,” said Alvaro, nodding as he pondered the capabilities of computers for a second. “Then how do we use the stolen cards to make money?”
“Well, if you have a good pickpocket in your gang, that can give you a lit
tle more time, but a better way is to just get the number, and not the card.”
Alvaro scratched his head. “What?”
“Some places, like rental car companies, have the people write their credit card numbers on the application. You have your men go to through the trash at night. They get the application with all the numbers and all the person’s information. Then you can use the number to buy things on the computer, or over the phone. The things you buy are sent to you in the mail before the person gets his statement. Remember I told you they only get the statements once a month, so they might not see the problem for almost thirty days.”
Alvaro nodded in agreement as he began to understand the process.
“Normally you have the things shipped in two days, or what they call priority. Then you have a better chance to get it before the problem is reported.”
Alvaro, remembering shipping flowers to Maria’s aunt’s house in southern Mexico asked, “Isn’t it really expensive to have things shipped fast?”
Tejada smiled. “Yeah, but it isn’t your money, so who cares.”
Alvaro agreed with a smile.
Over lunch and the next four hours, Alvaro learned the basics of credit card fraud, how to buy high-end merchandise like computers and jewelry that could be sold quickly, easily, and at a high profit. How to open and change multiple mail drops monthly to receive the merchandise safely before the merchants flagged the drop locations. How to use embossers to imprint stolen credit card numbers on cards to use them in stores. How to get cash using the cards, and how to work with corrupt merchants to make even more money.
